1. Large farms are key to low food prices.
Kieth L. Smith Associate Vice President for Ag. Admin. and Director, OSU Extension. Februarty, 03. “Columnist defends ‘large farming’ operations” http://clark.osu.edu/ag/largeoperations.htm
Let's begin by asking the question: "Why large farms?" The answer is: cheap food. The competition for your food dollar is global. With large ships, huge airplanes and new technology for preserving perishable commodities, our farmers must compete against producers around the world to sell you food. Many of these countries have a lower standard of living. Thus, two major cost inputs for producing food, land and labor, are much cheaper abroad, making their produce more competitive.

The only way we can compete against them is through quality, technology and economies of scale, otherwise known as getting bigger. This global competition has driven down profit per unit in agriculture. In the 1970's farmers told me their realistic goal was to net $70 per acre raising field crops. Tuition at Ohio State University in 1975 was around $840 per year. Thus, in the 70's it required 12 acres of field crops to pay OSU. Today, farmers struggle to net $20 an acre (OSU budget figures) with 200 thousand-dollar combines and cash rents averaging $90 an acre. Tuition at OSU this year is $4200 per student. If my math is correct, OSU needs 210 acres for your son or daughter. Even at the net of $70 per acre it would still take 60 acres instead of 12.

2. An increase in food prices will leave 1.1 billion dead turning case.
Paul Power Jr. Staff writer for the Tampa Tribune. January 22, 96 “Grain Shortage Growing problem” l/n (not listed on academic).
In 1995, world production failed to meet demand for the third consecutive year, said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C.
As a result, grain stockpiles fell from an average of 17 percent of annual consumption in 1994-1995 to 13 percent at the end of the 1995-1996 season, he said. That's troubling, Pinstrup-Andersen noted, since 13 percent is well below the 17 percent the United Nations considers essential to provide a margin of safety in world food security. During the food crisis of the early 1970s, world grain stocks were at 15 percent.

"Even if they are merely blips, higher international prices can hurt poor countries that import a significant portion of their food," he said. "Rising prices can also quickly put food out of reach of the 1.1 billion people in the developing world who live on a dollar a day or less."

4. More carbon dioxide is necessary to increase the amount of plants being grown and prevent famine turning case.

2. Turn: GMOs are uniquely resistant to diseases that can decimate non modified crops.
GMO Compass An EU commissioned group of independent GMO researchers. December 11, 06. “ Breeding aims: Disease resistance”. http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/breeding_aims/148.disease_resistant_crops.html
Viruses cause many economically important plant diseases. For example, the Beet necrotic yellow vein virus (BNYVV) causes sugar beets to have smaller, hairier roots, reducing yields by up to 50 percent. The spread of most viruses is very difficult to control. Once infection sets in, no chemical treatment methods are available. Losses are usually very high and require longer rotation intervals and modified cropping systems. This translates into considerable losses. Viruses are often transmitted from plant to plant by insects. Insecticides are sometimes used to control viral infections, but success is very limited. The most effective ways of managing viruses are cultural controls (e.g. removing diseased plants) and using resistant cultivars. Although conventional methods of breeding have been able to provide some virus resistant or tolerant cultivars, they are not available for most corps. Virus resistant GM plants
In some cases, biotechnology can be used to make virus resistant crops. The most common way of doing this is by giving a plant a viral gene encoding the virus' 'coat protein'. The plant can then produce this viral protein before the virus infects the plant. If the virus arrives, it is not able to reproduce. The explanation for this is called cosuppression. The plant has ways of knowing that the viral coat protein should not be produced, and it has ways of eventually shutting down the protein's expression. When the virus tries to infect the plant, the production of its essential coat protein is already blocked. All genetically modified virus resistant plants on the market (e.g. papayas and squash) have coat protein mediated resistance. It may also be possible to confer resistance by taking a resistance gene naturally found in one plant and then transferring it to an important crop.

1. Small farms increase health problems due to less regulation. China proves.
Cameron Dueck Writer for the South China Morning Post. March 30, 07 “Food scares play havoc on business costs” pg. 7 L/N
Many costs do not appear at the supermarket checkout, instead finding their way into your tax or medical bills or appearing as lost labour efficiency. "When people get sick because of contaminated water or food and can't go to work or school, how do you put a cost on that?" asked Michael Wong, Asian director of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment. His group is trying to connect the dots between pollution, disease and the costs of those diseases to corporations and governments. "Sickness is a direct production cost." Much of China's food is grown by small family farms with only a few heads of livestock and a small plot of land. Such fragmentation makes it more difficult to regulate food quality than on a large industrialised farm. Even so, Hong Kong imports 96 per cent of its food, much of it from the mainland, and last May created a Centre for Food Safety to inspect and regulate the food industry.